Keynote: Bias in BigData/AI and ML

We have always had big data. 80 years ago, big data was your grandparents 40 years ago big data was the library 20 years ago, big data was Lexis-Nexis, today big data is eating the world. Influencing how we shop, what news we see, and very soon, how we transact everything from credit default swaps to corn. The speed at which this technology is being deployed has aroused the ire of Elon Musk with him saying "China, Russia, soon all countries w strong computer science. Competition for AI superiority at national level most likely cause of WW3 imo."

However something a bit less apocalyptic but all the more insidious is happening. The inherent bias in data is already disproportionally affecting underrepresented people all over the world.

This talk will highlight Facebook and Twitters over-reliance on AI and ML during the 2016 election and the ripples it is causing in American society today. It will then pivot to Criminal Sentencing platforms that have shown to have a strong bias against African American and Hispanic defendants. Finally we will talk about mitigation strategies at the data source level as well as the human level.